Arizona taxes (Green Valley, Sahuarita: low income, sales, car registration)

[Greenvalleyfan]

What a rip off.
State sales tax 5.6, county adds their tax, municipality adds on more!

New and learning the process. Nothing cheap about living here, unless you are from California.

[rcarbuilder]

Imagine walking 1,000 miles risking your life for a better life only to find out how expensive freedom can be.

[Greenvalleyfan]

Originally Posted by rcarbuilder

Imagine walking 1,000 miles risking your life for a better life only to find out how expensive freedom can be.

Imagine being a senile old man leading the way across the desert.

[Ponderosa]

The exact mix of taxes will vary from state to state. Arizona favors the wealthy when it comes to taxation so we have low property taxes and very low income taxes but high sales tax and vehicle registrations which disproportionately fall on working people.

So if much of one's income goes to living expenses, then this is not a good state to be in taxwise as the sales tax is high. But if you make a lot of money, own a few homes, and can "hide" all your income on your federal return, this is the place to be.

[Voebe]

Originally Posted by rcarbuilder

Imagine walking 1,000 miles risking your life for a better life only to find out how expensive freedom can be.

Or, imagine walking 1,000 miles risking your life, to be grateful to find refuge in a reasonably functioning society, which is supported by its taxes.

[Mike from back east]

I know there are websites that try to tell us things like the total tax load for any given state, but IMO these fall short of being truly comprehensive of all the various fees for things like car registrations, license plates, federal and state gasoline taxes, airport surcharges, toll roads and bridges, and any number of other expenses we pay for.

I'd like to see a much better accounting of all those costs, cranking in the cost of what we pay for health care, child care and college and THEN see how our TOTAL load of taxes AND other costs compares to the European model. If we could get some smart minds to do that we'd have a better grip on what we should do as a nation to compare apples to apples.

Keep in mind that WE are paying for one federal government, fifty state governments, three thousand one hundred forty three county governments, and nineteen thousand five hundred twenty two municipalities. THAT is a crap load of redundant government to pay for. Remember too that those counties were set up 125-200+ years ago when there were no roads, no cars, no phones, and no internet which made setting up a workable span of control reliant on distances, but now there's no need to have, and pay for, all this redundancy.

Cheers!

[Ex New Yorker]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

I know there are websites that try to tell us things like the total tax load for any given state, but IMO these fall short of being truly comprehensive of all the various fees for things like car registrations, license plates, federal and state gasoline taxes, airport surcharges, toll roads and bridges, and any number of other expenses we pay for.

I'd like to see a much better accounting of all those costs, cranking in the cost of what we pay for health care, child care and college and THEN see how our TOTAL load of taxes AND other costs compares to the European model. If we could get some smart minds to do that we'd have a better grip on what we should do as a nation to compare apples to apples.

Keep in mind that WE are paying for one federal government, fifty state governments, three thousand one hundred forty three county governments, and nineteen thousand five hundred twenty two municipalities. THAT is a crap load of redundant government to pay for. Remember too that those counties were set up 125-200+ years ago when there were no roads, no cars, no phones, and no internet which made setting up a workable span of control reliant on distances, but now there's no need to have, and pay for, all this redundancy.

Cheers!

The first year we moved out here taking all things considered we saved about $20,000 a year in living expenses compared to New York. The lions share was for property taxes and since we were self employed health insurance for a bare minimum policy. Back there it wasn't living it was existing. Now we have a savings account and can afford to buy things just because we want them and not necessarily need them.

[Hschlick84]

For perspective, neighbor states sales tax rates:

CA - 6%
NV - 4.6%
UT - 4.7%
CO - 2.9%
NM - 5.13%

So AZ has the 2nd highest sales taxes compared to the other 5 states, why? Need to cut it in half.

[wildflowers27]

The sales tax in Green Valley is 6.1%, and nearby in Sahuarita it is 8.1%.

[thinkalot]

Depends on where you live. 5.6% to 11.2%

I pay 6.3%. Go a few blocks East and it's 8.1%. Go another mile and it's 9.2%.

Car registration is what gets me, plus the cash grab E test.